Upoma Aziz

That was the first time in my life I’d smelled charred meat. I could tell it was different from the kind you’re supposed to eat, and my mother had to hold me as I threw up violently on the side of the street.

The place had no soul or spirit left, and it was evident in the colourless walls, the unclean glasses, the empty eyes of the server who left me a menu card.

Old friend, you will be kept alive in jotted snippets and paper clippings.

The wish itself was pretty mediocre and commonplace, a mundane fantasy to escape the mundane.

The blue never ended here. The lights did not go out either.

"What would be an absolutely perfect afternoon to you?"

I didn’t know the endings to most of the stories as I fell asleep halfway.

When Naf woke up, he didn’t have much expectations from the day.

Food's a love language. People who don't cook are missing out.

“Are you still there?” I ask. “I’m here,” I hear a voice that’s my own.

I was not Hephaestus, Hephaestus was not I.

“Ugh, rotten stains… Won’t budge…”

He sleeps on his side, on his right side, to be specific. On the nights the excruciating pain on his right shoulder numbs him, he

The creatures of the dark feed on fear. And hot sauce.

“What’s the largest sum of money you’ve seen at a time?”

All the upsetting news we received, we learned to toss with the stones that skipped seven times across the water before sinking into oblivion.

A crestfallen soldier at the end of his service, the spine of the book was not vertical. It had contorted and bent at strange angles; if this were a person everyone would look at him with rueful, pitying eyes. Pitying eyes are curious, sneering eyes, prying eyes. Pitying eyes are not kind eyes.

Do we measure the leaves first? Or do we pour the water?

Webtoon is an app that lets you select from a myriad of web comics for free, unless you want to read an episode early.

I do not miss going to work, but I miss being young – not like the leftover puzzle pieces from several different sets jammed into one, never quite fitting.